I’m a 20-something living in Boston. My day job is working as a software developer at a startup, but to find me in the evenings just follow the trail of thread and listen for the soft whir of the machine. The aforementioned sewing machine is a hand-me-down Elna from my mother. The sewing skillz are also hand-me-downs from my very talented mother. Read more.

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Month: August 2013

I just found out about this new pattern company- I don’t think I’ve been this excited about something since I picked up my first ever indie pattern (the Jamie Christine mission maxi) and started sewing again for the first time in years.

I read about Named Clothing over on House of Pinheiro a couple of days ago and basically got heart palpitations and spent about 20 minutes at work covertly scouring their website on my phone. It’s exactly the kind of style that I love- simple modern lines, nothing too girly or frilly.

I finished this dress several weeks ago but it’s taken me a while to blog it. We just moved to a new apartment and have been without internet for quite a while. Comcast can’t seem to get their shit together on this one… On the upside, we’ve all been spending a bit of quality offline-time reading, cooking, exploring our new hood, and- in my case -sewing.

This dress was the main project that I made in the class I took at Laura’s Sewing School in Arlington. The website is sort of terrifying, but I decided to take the class anyway and I don’t regret it! Laura is extremely skilled and I learned quite a bit in the class- definitely feel like I got my money’s worth.

The dress is a slightly modified Datura by Deer and Doe patterns. The pattern is for a blouse, but I lengthened it into a dress and used a zipper as the back closure instead of the button placket. I also lowered the darts- an alteration I’ve never made before but Laura recommended it and I think it fits great. This was not a particularly complicated pattern, but the class was a real back to the basics review for me- I learned to trace patterns better, cut better, pin better, press better, stitch better, just do everything I’ve already been doing but BETTER.

I was once again tempted to buy a yard of Liberty Lawn for this dress, but I satisfied myself with the Liberty Lifestyles for the front panel of the dress, and used a navy shot cotton for the yoke and back panel.

Laura showed me how to do exposed zippers. It’s so easy- I get the feeling I’ll be doing this quite a bit from now on. I decided to do it upside down so that it zips from the bottom, and I really like the effect.

My boyfriend Dan took these pictures in my parent’s garden while we were visiting last weekend. We took advantage of all available props.

Here’s number two- this time I made it out of a more sophisticated navy blue cotton sateen from organiccottonplus.com. You can see my first one here.

I constructed the pockets and bias facing out of a contrast print (from Liberty again, obviously because I’m the kind of person that orders the same flavor at every ice cream shop I go to).

I also lowered and shortened the bust darts for a better fit, and I think it fits noticeably better than my first one. I interfaced the edges of the diagonal pieces in the back to avoid all the gaping that I got with the first one. It didn’t work. Hence the “casual” shoulder hunch i’m rocking here. I used an exposed zipper again. I fucked it up the first couple of times without any guidance, but I figured it out eventually. Typical me being in too much of a hurry to look up a how-to, winging it and then having to unpick it and go back, slowing the whole thing down even more than if i’d just taken the time to look up some instructions.

Oh also, here’s that skyline. That’s basically the view from our new apartment in East Boston. Jealous much?